Scarlett Johansson and Oxfam, Torn Apart by Israeli Company Deal

JERUSALEM — “Start with plain water and bubbles. Mix in the perfect flavor,” suggests Scarlett Johansson in the ad that is part of her new endorsement deal with SodaStream, the Israeli company that manufactures home carbonation systems.

But instead of a fizzy drink, Ms. Johansson, a Hollywood actress, stirred up an international political storm this week because SodaStream’s largest factory is in a Jewish settlement in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, an area the Palestinians envision as part of a future independent state.

Her deal with SodaStream has led to a parting of ways between Ms. Johansson and Oxfam International, the confederation of aid groups. Oxfam issued a statement on Thursday saying it had accepted Ms. Johansson’s decision to step down after eight years as a global ambassador.

“Oxfam believes that businesses such as SodaStream that operate in settlements further the ongoing poverty and denial of rights of the Palestinian communities that we work to support,” the group said, adding that it was “opposed to all trade from Israeli settlements, which are illegal under international law.”

The factory is in Mishor Adumim, an industrial zone attached to the large, urban settlement of Maale Adumim in the beige hills east of Jerusalem. Israel views the territory that it captured from Jordan in the 1967 war as disputed and says it intends to keep Maale Adumim under any peace deal with the Palestinians.

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SodaStream has a factory in a West Bank settlement.CreditMenahem Kahana/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The dispute over the ad, scheduled to air during the Super Bowl on Sunday, has pitted pro-Palestinian activists against people and groups who support Israel unreservedly. Accusations of Israeli exploitation of Palestinian resources have been met with arguments that SodaStream encourages coexistence by providing employment for hundreds of West Bank Palestinians alongside Israeli Jews and Arab citizens of Israel.

Predictably, reactions to Ms. Johansson’s split from Oxfam were divided along similar lines. “Just like the few artists who played Sun City during South African apartheid, Johansson will be remembered for having stood on the wrong side of history,” said Rafeef Ziadah, a spokeswoman for the Palestinian B.D.S. National Committee, in a statement. The committee is a coalition of Palestinian organizations that advocate boycotts, divestment and sanctions in their campaign against Israel.

In contrast, Robert Singer, the chief executive of the World Jewish Congress, an organization representing Jewish communities globally, said in a statement, “We applaud Miss Johansson for her forthright defense of economic cooperation between Israelis and Palestinians and for standing up to the international bullies.”

The fuss comes to the fore just as concern is growing in Israel about a potential increase in foreign boycotts of its companies if current Israeli-Palestinian peace talks fail. Some European supermarket chains are already shunning agricultural produce from the settlements. PGGM, a large Dutch pension fund management company, recently decided to withdraw all its investments from Israel’s five largest banks because they maintain branches in West Bank settlements or are involved in financing settlement construction.

Yair Lapid, Israel’s centrist finance minister, warned this week, “If the negotiations with the Palestinians get stuck or break down and we enter a reality of a European boycott, even a very partial one, Israel’s economy will retreat.” Speaking at the annual conference of the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, he said that “every resident of Israel will get hit straight in the pocket.”

Last month, members of the American Studies Association, an organization of professors, voted to boycott Israeli academic institutions, giving a small but symbolic victory to the pro-Palestinian B.D.S. movement in the United States.

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The actress Scarlett Johansson left her eight-year Oxfam post after linking up with SodaStream.CreditTiziana Fabi/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

But the dispute over SodaStream has taken the boycott debate way beyond its usual, relatively limited audiences, and it is likely to simmer on.

SodaStream announced its collaboration with Ms. Johansson on Jan. 12, calling her its “first-ever global brand ambassador.” Ms. Johansson released a statement in which she said she remained “a supporter of economic cooperation and social interaction between a democratic Israel and Palestine.”

SodaStream, she continued, “is a company that is not only committed to the environment but to building a bridge to peace between Israel and Palestine, supporting neighbors working alongside each other, receiving equal pay, equal benefits and equal rights.”

Palestinians and their supporters who have been campaigning for Palestinian rights to settle in the area around Maale Adumim do not see it that way.

Grass-roots activists known as the Bab al Shams Village Council, in coalition with the Jahalin Association, representing the Bedouin tribe that has been encamped in the area for decades, also issued a statement. “For Palestinians to enjoy genuine and lasting economic prosperity,” it said, “they require freedom from Israeli domination.”

Daniel Birnbaum, the chief executive of SodaStream, joined the company in 2007, years after its establishment. He said this week in an interview that while he would not have chosen Mishor Adumim as the site for a factory, it was by now a reality. He said that out of loyalty to the roughly 500 Palestinians employed there, he would not bow to political pressure to close the factory.

“I could leave there tomorrow,” he said. “For me it would be easier, but what about the employees?”

Jodi Rudoren contributed reporting.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A4 of the New York edition with the headline: Actress and Oxfam Part Ways Over Israeli Company Deal. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe